Lanphier senior forward Kalvin Caesar drives to the hoop against three defenders at the Boys and Girls Club in Springfield. Photo BY PATRICK YEAGLE It’s already warm outside at 85 degrees on a breezeless summer evening in Springfield, but inside the gym at the Boys and Girls Club, it seems even hotter. The gym, sans […]
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Extreme school makeover
What would cause parents to be excited about sending their children to a 102-year-old school building where 82 percent of the students come from low-income homes? The answer is an outpouring of generosity from a community intent on seeing the school succeed. Ever since the summer of 2011, Springfield’s Harvard Park Elementary School has seen […]
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Volunteering doesn’t pay…or does it?
On a blustery Friday, an endless stream of people ambles into the United Way office, filling the small space with white T-shirts bearing the words “Live United.” Moments later, they’re filing back through the door and fanning out across Springfield to tackle a variety of tasks. It’s a record-breaking “Day of Action” for the United […]
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Veterans help out at Jubilee Farm
More than 8,000 miles and three decades separate the quiet fields at Jubilee Farm west of Springfield from the violence and death of the Vietnam War. But for Richard Tapia, a Springfield veteran of the Vietnam War, there is a common element to both places: the camaraderie and trust of a fellow veteran. Tapia spent […]
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Summer with the blind in Bolivia
Molly Clesen may be 4,200 miles from home, but she’s still in a familiar environment: the classroom. Clesen, a 26-year-old teacher of blind and visually impaired students in Springfield School District 186, is spending part of her summer teaching kids with vision impairments in Cochabamba (Co-cha-bomb-ba), Bolivia, a city of more than 608,000 people situated […]
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There goes the neighborhood
A new playground in Springfield’s Gehrmann Park will serve as an anchor in a neighborhood that is revitalizing itself one step at a time. On Sept. 25, about 200 volunteers converged on Gehrmann Park in the Enos Park neighborhood of Springfield to construct a donated playground in a single day. Featuring what Derek Harms, director […]
